So it was in 1880. One of their first troubles sprang from South Africa. There the Boer Republic of the Transvaal had long been in difficulties, threatened by bankruptcy and disorders within and by the Zulu warrior kingdom upon its eastern border. … As soon as British arms had finally quelled the Zulus in 1879 they felt safe enough to seize their chance.

Winston Churchill, A History of the English-Sp…, loc. 1900